AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Chapter Twenty
Ryan waited for the receptionist to hang up the phone before stepping up to the desk.
“Hi, you’re Ryan, right?”
“Yeah. Hi Simone, any chance my sister is available?” God, he hoped he got her name right or he’d never hear the end of it from Kendall about how he doesn’t pay attention to anything that isn’t baseball.
“She just finished up a team meeting, so let me check if she has time to see you.”
He leaned back on his heels. “No problem.” Scanning the empty waiting room, he couldn’t help but smile. His sister had done well for herself. When she’d taken over as manager of the design agency, it had been floundering, and in a year it was one of the up-and-coming firms in the city. But then he wouldn’t expect anything else from Kendall. She made him seem like a slacker, and that was saying something.
At the sound of heels clicking on the floor, he glanced up as his sister strode toward him. “To what do I owe this pleasure?” Kendall asked.
“You got a minute?”
Kendall’s eyes narrowed as she assessed him. “You okay? You look like crap.”
“Gee thanks.” He rubbed his hand roughly against his forehead then pushed his hair back. “I wanted to talk to you about something.” He shifted uncomfortably. This wasn’t really a conversation he wanted to have in the waiting room.
“Sure, come on back.” Kendall turned and led the way to her office.
He walked over to the window and peered down at the view below. “Who knew my little sister would have a swanky corner office one day?” He smiled when he saw the picture of Kendall and Pete on the corner of her desk.
“Sit, do you want coffee or anything?” Kendall asked.
“Nah, I’m good.”
“Spill, what are you doing here?” Kendall leaned back in her office chair and crossed her arms over her chest.
Was he dreaming too big? He didn’t think so, but who the hell knew? His sister had been a huge help to Pete in getting his non-profit up and running smoothly. Ryan was really hoping she’d do the same for him.
“I was uh…” He cleared his throat. “I was hoping you could help me with a project. Point me in the right direction, maybe help me write up a pitch or whatever.”
“What kind of project are we talking about?”
He tried to swallow, but the spit stuck in his throat. He should have taken her up on the drink. Why was he so nervous? This was his sister. She’d seen him icing his nuts and crawling from room to room because he couldn’t walk after taking a ball so hard it broke his cup. And she’d barely made fun of him despite how ridiculous he’d looked. He could certainly talk to her about this.
He cleared his throat. “What would it take to start a… I’m not sure mentorship is the right word? More like a public speaking program to talk to youth at schools and stuff.”
“Well, that depends on who’s speaking? What are they talking about? I kind of need more to work with here, Ry.”
“I wanted to figure out how to go about pitching the idea of having professional ball players go into schools and talk to the sports teams. At this point I’m thinking the boys, eventually I’d like to expand out to all the kids but for now I’m thinking student athletes and talk to them about being better men.”
Kendall leaned forward and rested her elbows on her desk. “What do you mean better men?”
“I don’t know, just talking to them about consent and treating women, fuck, people in general with respect.”
“Go on,” Kendall pressed.
“What I’m picturing is talking to groups of guys about being better. Don’t ask a girl for nudes, don’t slut shame her when she does. If she’s been drinking, don’t be dick and take advantage of that.”
“I like where you’re going, but don’t they do that already in school?”
“No idea. I’m sure some schools do, but clearly the message isn’t getting across based on what I see and hear. We have this platform as athletes. We should use it.”
“Why don’t you talk to Kirsty about this?”
He shrugged. “I don’t want it to turn it into what always happens where the guys who are the biggest fuckups are the ones who get the most opportunity to contribute because they need the good PR. The last thing I want this to be is some fuckwad like Andy telling guys to be better when he’s the biggest culprit of doing shit like this.”
